


Northern Downpour Sends Its Love

by theangstyace



Series: The Summer He Almost Drowned (and maybe enjoyed it afterward) [2]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Crying, Grieving, Growing Up, M/M, Mermaids, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Not Beta Read, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 11:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theangstyace/pseuds/theangstyace
Summary: Summertime held a certain allure. It was a time for leisure and excitement. The days were hot and long, while the nights were just cool enough to be comforting.Summertime, for Mikleo, apparently, also meant reunions.





	Northern Downpour Sends Its Love

**Author's Note:**

> I'm baaack~ As per usual, this is minimally edited. Feel free to correct any mistakes you see! 
> 
> This is also set in the same time frame as "Blue Lips, Blue Veins" and this fic will make a little more sense if you read it beforehand!

Since he was young, Mikleo’s mother always told him stories about the shore. Her stories were woven with delicate intricacy, crafted like hand-spun lace. Her eyes would sparkle, and her voice would take varying tones as she spoke of the woods beyond the shores, and the little log cabins that dotted one end of the lake. 

Sometimes she would punctuate her stories with trinkets. A pocket watch here, a compact there. Her voice took on a sad and soft quality to it on some trinkets. Mikleo’s favorite, a ring with braided metal made to look like tree branches on a sturdy chain, seemed to draw the most sadness from her. Each time she brought it up, it was always a story of a mermaid who fell in love with a human man on the edge of the lake in the soft glow of the moon. 

That story in particular always managed to draw out his uncle’s ire.

* * *

Mikleo is nine years old when he sees a human for the first time. 

His curiosity had gotten the better of him, leading him to straying closer to the cabins he occasionally saw when he poked his head above the water. No doubt that he would receive a long scolding from his mother and uncle once they found him, but something told him this would be worth it despite the punishment. 

Underneath the waves, he sees a hand dangle over the side of the rough-hewed planks of the dock. Silhouetted by the sun, Mikleo can make out tawny locks that puff up like the yellow flowers he sees on the craggy rocks on the other end of the lake. 

His curiosity is what leads him to reach up and grab the hand that’s resting just barely beneath the waves. The appendage twitches, then jerks back out of his grasp. 

Mikleo furrows his brows. The hand re-appears in the water, gently swaying. He looks up, catching a distorted view of the face that belongs to the hand. There’s a look of content boredom on his soft features, green eyes lidded in lazy ease. His heart stutters in his chest. Short, plump fingers toy absentmindedly with his bangs that float up. Mikleo waves his hand, causing a gentle splash on the surface of the water. 

The boy gives pause, fingers leaving Mikleo’s hair. Then, the boy reciprocates, splashing the water playfully. _A game?_ Mikleo wonders, grabbing the boy’s hand once more. This time, he finds no resistance. 

He wishes with a deep longing to poke his head above the water, to introduce himself to the tawny boy in earnest, but the reproachful tone of his uncle stops him. He’s already in trouble enough, coming this far to the shore… and if he gets seen… Well, his mother might be fond of telling stories of kind and handsome woodsmen, but his uncle was fond of telling stories of fishermen who liked to prey on his own folk--of the stories-but-not that told of the almost extinction of merpeople in the lake. 

Maybe… maybe if the boy was in the water with him…

With a finality in his thoughts, Mikleo, with all his strength, pulled the boy from the dock and into the water. He floundered and struggled, bubbles escaping is mouth as he yelped. On the surface, there were surprised shouts, the sounds of whistles blowing, and suddenly a pair of hands were underneath the boy’s armpits and trying to pull upwards. 

Mikleo made to pull on the boy’s hand once more, but another pair of hands joined the effort in hauling the boy out of the water. A hand clamped down on his bicep and pulled him away from the commotion. 

* * *

_The ensuing lecture was long and painful to sit through. Mikleo hadn’t been sure what was worse, his uncle’s yelling, or how much he blamed his mother’s stories on this incident._

_It was enough to make his mother not tell another story of the surface until he was seventeen, when he had his face buried in her lap and his heart was breaking in a way that only young love could manage. Her long fingers would work their way through his hair as she told the stories of her own encounters with a soft-spoken man on docks in the dead of night._

* * *

Sorey has changed over the years, Mikleo muses, and yet somehow managed to stay the same. 

Physically, there is almost nothing about him that resembles the gangly teen he had once been. His arms and chest had filled out, and while his face had retained a certain softness around the edges, Mikleo is sure that if he ran his fingers across his jaw that he would feel prickles of stubble that was beginning to form. 

Underneath his eyes, there are dark, bruise-like circles. A bone-deep weariness seemed to settle in him, curving his shoulders inward and causing his head to bow ever-so-slightly. But when he smiles, bright and wide, Mikleo sees the boy his heart has grown fond of over the long years. 

His cheek still rests against his hand as Sorey regales the death of his mother--a wound that doesn’t so much as sting as it does ache--and the more recent death of his grandfather. 

The merman makes an empathizing hum. He knows how much he had looked up to both of his family members. Mikleo had even hoped to meet them one day, even if it had been an outlandish dream. 

They idle in silence for a long while. 

“I miss him.” 

Mikleo looks up, lithe fingers stilling. He had been tracing the new calluses on Sorey’s hands, marveling at how much bigger they were then the last time he had seen him. There’s a forlorn look on his face. Mikleo stays silent, nodding. He’d never lost anyone to death before. His own father had been gone long before his birth without so much of a whisper of his name.

“Gramps was..” Sorey began, pillowing his head in the crook of his free arm. “Gramps was always there. I mean, sure, he was getting old…. I knew he wasn’t going to last forever. Nobody does--” he lets out a short bark of a laugh. “--but… I just hoped…”

Sorey lets out a sigh. “Nevermind.” 

There’s a low note of sadness in his friend’s voice and a bright wetness in his beautiful green eyes. Mikleo gently but firmly grasps his tanned hand and gives a good squeeze, trying to catch his wandering gaze. 

“What were you hoping?” Mikleo asks. 

“It’s stupid.”

“Nonsense.”

Green eyes finally meet amethyst ones, and Sorey’s face contorts into a small pout. 

“I just,” he starts. “This is gonna sound pretty silly.. And a little selfish… but I really hoped he’d be here to see me.. I don’t know… achieve in life.”

“How do you mean?” Mikleo prodded. 

“I wanted him to be around to see me at least graduate college… I mean, I know it was a stretch to ask him to see me have kids, but he was--” Sorey’s voice cracks. “He was the closest thing I’ve really had to a father.” 

Mikleo is confused by this. “I thought you were close to your actual father.” 

He receives a wet laugh. Sorey is no longer looking at him. 

“The most I saw of him was right after the divorce.. And then over the years it just seemed like he didn’t want to put up with me,” he explained. There was a bitter note that Mikleo was surprised to hear. “And then after mom died… God.. I showed up to his house with my stuff and he told me to my face that he didn’t want me. Do you know how that _feels_?” 

He doesn’t. Mikleo’s only ever known his mother and uncle. They’d always been there to care for him, and even though Michael liked to lecture and gripe, he was always there for his nephew for a quick word of advice or support. Michael was the closest thing Mikleo had to father. 

With a shaky breath, Sorey continues. “After that, I thought maybe Gramps wouldn’t want me either. I told him that, too. And y’know what he did?” 

Mikleo shakes his head. Anger churns in his stomach. Why would anyone want to make this wonderful boy--now a man--think he wasn’t wanted? That he wasn’t worth it? That he had nothing to offer? His own father, at that; a man that Sorey had looked up to for the longest while as well. 

“Gramps sat me down and he said, ‘ _Sorey, you have never had to prove your worth to me, and you never will. You are my grandson, and that’s enough. I’m grateful that you’re here with me and I would never do anything to change that. Now, would you like to help make dinner?’”_

The previously unshed tears flowed freely down his cheeks. With a wet sniffle, Sorey laughs. 

“He’d always do that, you know?” He says weakly. “I.. I’d be having a tough time with something and he’d swoop in and say stuff like that. Sometimes I wouldn’t even have to tell him something was wrong, he just _knew._ ” 

With a sad sigh, Mikleo releases Sorey’s hand in favor of reaching up and caressing his cheek. Gently, he wipes away new tears. He cards his fingers through Sorey’s tawny locks, mimicking the way his mother would whenever he needed comfort. Sorey lets out a shaky sigh that sounds more like a half-formed sob, and Mikleo finally acknowledges the crickets playing their own symphonies in the grasses. 

* * *

In the week that follows, Mikleo’s actions are bolder than they were the day he pulled Sorey into the lake. 

He swims close to the surface, most days, trailing not only the canoe that contains Sorey, but the other ones as well. As he swims on his back, he lets his fingertips skim the side of the old boats, hair trailing loosely behind him as he flicks his tail in lazy motions. 

When he breaches the surface of the water by the docks, he can hear children swear up and down that they saw _someone_ in the lake. It garners a sly smile, and once, one of the kids saw him. He had, of course, ducked back down, but he snickered all the way back to his home at the minor chaos his appearance may have caused. 

(And it did. Mikelo got an earful from Sorey that evening when they met up. There was no bite to his words, and if he allowed himself to dream, there was a certain fondness that edged them)

There was one day, one where the sun had been beating overhead, and Mikleo was floating just below the surface of the water considering if he should head for deeper water, that a child fell in. 

It had been a startling thing. Mikleo righted himself and watched. He had grown used to watching kids fall--either out of clumsiness or from being pushed--and they always floundered for a moment before swimming to the top. The girl who had fallen was small, one of the younger campers. She thrashed in the water, bubbles escaping her mouth in quick succession. Her struggle was clear.

There wasn’t a tough decision to make. With precision and speed, Mikleo scooped her up and swam to the surface. 

She coughed and sputtered, heaving big, gulping breaths. Mikleo had to clear his throat and spit water himself as he adjusted to breathing air. He would’ve placed her up on the floating dock and kept an eye on her from a distance, but the young girl was clinging to him. Stealing a glance at the shoreline, Mikleo quickly picked out the one that held the least amount of people. 

Turns out swimming with someone pressed to your chest was more difficult than it seemed. 

If he swam on his front, he would’ve most definitely drowned the poor girl, and it was an unshakable fact that there was no way Mikleo was going to be able to move her to his back. This meant swimming on his back, which was manageable, but difficult if he wanted to avoid running into other swimmers. 

Still, he managed it, gently rubbing the girl’s back every time she gave a small whimper. 

Thankfully, the dock that he had initially chosen was still mostly uninhabited. Internally, he breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Sorey. He stood next to a fairly tall man, who had long silver hair pulled up into a messy bun. They spoke about something, and Sorey must’ve said something funny, because the other man laughed loudly. 

Mikleo righted himself. The girl in his arms clung tighter once she felt the water touch her again. 

It was simple: lift the girl and set her on the dock, then swim away and only be a minor legend around the fire tonight. 

And yet, the girl was very adamant on staying with Mikleo. 

“C’mon,” he said gently. “Sorey is up there, you’ll be out of the water and you can get dried off. How’s that sound?” 

Hesitantly, the girl nodded, and he quickly deposited her on the dock. 

By the time she turned back to look, he was gone with nothing but a flick of his tail. 

* * *

_“Thank you, by the way,” Sorey says that same evening._

_“For what?” Mikleo asks, already knowing what he was being thanked for._

_“For making sure Halley was okay. She told me about it.”_

_“Sure. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again. Do you guys even_ have _lifeguards?”_

_“We were in the middle of switching shifts.”_

_“Excuses, excuses.”_

_There’s a brief pause between the two. Mikleo is sure the conversation is over._

_“I am glad you didn’t drown anyone else,” Sorey said at a poor imitation of being serious._

_“Oh shut up!” Mikleo groaned. “You were the only one, and I didn’t know any better!”_

_“Sure thing.”_

_Sorey gets a face-full of water for that one._

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting partially done in my drafts for the longest time, and I finally got the will to finish it all the way. I've just been in a writing mood as of late, and I have some more fics set in this verse and for another fandom, so hold on tight! 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the read!
> 
> **TINY EDIT 7/17/19 I TOTALLY DIDN'T NOTICE THE USAGE OF GRANDMOTHER INSTEAD OF GRANDFATHER AAHHAHA (rest assured, it's been fixed with minimal hysterics)


End file.
